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Chicken Biryani

Yesterday was Eid al-Adha. We celebrated this day with prayers, good thoughts and a beautiful feast. The house infused with herbs and spices. The house was clean and everyone expected the wonderful things to keep coming. For us Eid cannot be perfect without big pot of homemade chicken biryani.

Biryani is an aromatic rice dish cooked with meat and dried fruits. Many people finds cooking biryani intimidating and difficult, but trust me it is easy and actually really fun process… and I am gal from Thailand saying this 🙂

There are many versions of biryani in India. In the south, is the biryani is milder and more balance while in the North, biryani is more intense and colorful.

Today I am going to show the Malabar style Biryani. It is less spicy, perfectly herbs up and the texture and the flavour are so well blended. It is not only simple to make but the result are so wonderful and very delicious.

Chicken Biryani

Ingredients: (servings: 6+ leftovers)

1 1/2 kg chicken- skin removed, cut into big pieces

5 cups basmati rice or any long grain rice

5-8 cardamom pods- roughly bruised

2 bay leaves

2 tsp salt for chicken

1 1/2 tbsp salt for rice

1/2 cup raisin

3/4 cup cashew nut

1 cup ghee (clarified butter)

3 large onion- sliced

1 large tomato- sliced

50 gm garlic

50 gm fresh ginger

50 gm shallots

2-4 green chili

6-10 curry leaves

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp tumeric powder

2 tsp coriander seed powder

1 tsp garam masala (available in Indian grocers)

2 tbsp biryani masala- recipe below

A handful of fresh coriander- chopped

A handful of fresh mint- chopped

1 cup plain yoghurt

1 lime- juiced

What I did:

Heat 1/2 cup of ghee in the large pan over the medium heat.

Add cashew nuts and stir until golden brown. Remove from the pan and keep aside.

Add raisins and stir until they are popped. Remove form the pan and keep aside along with the cashew nuts.

Add sliced onion in the same pan and sauté until golden brown.

Remove half of the onion from the pan and keep aside.

Grind garlic, ginger, shallots and green chili until smooth paste.

Add this paste in the other half onion in the pan along with some curry leaves and stir until fragranced.

Drizzle about 1/2 cup of ghee over the rice and let it melt through and infused in the rice.

Cover the lid and let it cook in the very low heat for 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat and it is ready to serve.

I would say the whole process didn’t take longer than 1 1/2 hours and it was fun to play with fresh ingredients and immerged myself in the exotic spices.

The biryani was wonderful. The rice was fluffy, glossy and soft. The chicken was tender and delicious. We also cooked some deep fried fish, spicy fried chicken, simple beans, cucumber salad with yoghurt. And of course, nice strawberry ice-cream at the end!

It was a beautiful meal perfect for the beautiful day! 🙂 I can’t wait to try more things in my next holiday.

What’s difficult recipe you tried lately and find out that it was much simple and fun to cook?

Glad to see you will not be throwing away your carcasses!
I am so glad you wrote on my blog so that I could see yours… my husband just brought me back a bag of biryani massala from India, and I had no idea what to do with it. I will post my results with your recipe and a crosslink back to your blog!

[…] We celebrate it with local menu and ingredients. Here in India, the focal main course must be Biryani and some luscious curries. But in Thailand, Rice noodle is one festive dish that is a must to make […]